In that today marks the launch of the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, it seems fitting to note some of the things that NASA has developed in the process of escaping gravity and taking man into space.

Since this is primarily a dental blog, I first have to mention the improvements in dental technology that development of the Shuttle brought us.

The ceramic tiles which didn’t want to stay in place during early test flights immediately come to mind. Fortunately when these issues were solved, dentistry as we knew it was changed forever. New materials that would replace missing tooth structure were combined with unheard of adhesives to produce methods of restoring teeth that no only reproduced the strength of natural tooth structure, but were able to mimic the esthetics as well.

As nice as a shiny gold tooth looks on a front tooth (!), we can agree that having one that is undetectable is far more desirable. Now, thanks to computer aided design combined with wireless technology and ceramic milling technology, all of which were developed or improved by NASA, you can go to the dentist and in one visit have a custom milled tooth replacement designed, fabricated and placed in a few hours. No temporaries falling out, and no second appointment. Pretty Cool!

A team from the Dental Institute at Kings College London has come up with a nifty little device that will cancel the noise from a dental drill.

Huh??

We’ve been waiting for something like that since the stone age! It seems as though it will work much like noise cancelling headphones that you use to block out aircraft noises, rampaging children or the occasional spouse.

The idea isn’t new, but the problem has always been that noise cancelling technology works far better for low frequency sound than high frequency. Enter Brian Millar and his team. They seem to have solved the problem, and a commercial version is (hopefully) not too far down the road.

Nobody really likes going to the dentist, but when it’s necessary, none of us like to spend more time and money than we have to. For that reason we decided to make the investment in a CEREC system for the benefit of our patients.

The CEREC system allows us to fabricate a crown, in our office, for those teeth that have been compromised by decay, breakage, or large fillings, among other things.

Using technology perfected over the last 20 yrs, digital 3D pictures are taken of your tooth before and during the procedure which allow the fabrication of a crown using CAD-CAM software to design and mill the restoration from a solid block of porcelain- thus ensuring high levels of strength and aesthetics.

One of the best parts of all this is that only one visit to the office is required- it is designed, fabricated and bonded to your tooth all in the same trip.

Feel free to take advantage of our complementary consult visit to see if you could benefit from this great technology.

FYI… the porcelain & bonding technology we use here are 2 more of the beneficial spin-offs from the Space Shuttle program… remember all the trouble they had with ceramic tiles breaking and falling off? Well, they spent a bundle coming up with a fix for the problem, and this is one of the places it ended up!

Well, we have the website up and while there are still some minor fixes to take care of, things are looking good. If you see any typo’s, or have any questions about us or any dental procedures that are on your mind, let us know!

We recently completed a 2 day INTENSIVE training program for the CEREC CAD-CAM unit that machines all ceramic crowns while you wait… no more second appointments!